What Causes Change of Seasons?

In the academic year 2010/11, I conducted a poll among 74 students at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, examining their knowledge of basic scientific facts. A half of the population were freshers, the other half were students of the second, third, fourth and fifth years of their studies, with about an equal distribution within that group. One of the questions was this:

Change of seasons is caused by:

(a) variation in the angle of the Sun’s radiation due to the tilt of the Earth’s axis of rotation

(b) variation of distance of the Earth from the Sun due to the elliptical orbit of the Earth

(c) periodic variations in Solar activity

59% of the students did not know that (a) is the correct answer. A large majority of them (55% of the total population) thought that (b) was the correct answer. To many, (b) may seem an obvious answer. Of course, people who hold that belief, and who live in the Northern hemisphere, are regularly surprised to learn that Earth is closest to the Sun (perihelion) in early January, when they typically experience winter cold. Also, they immediately see that their belief is contrary to the fact that winter cold in the Northern hemisphere coincides with summer warmth in the Southern hemisphere. For if the proximity to the Sun were the cause of summer warmth, it would be so on the whole plant.

In the formulation of answer (b) I added a hint about the elliptical orbit of the Earth because I supposed that the common knowledge of the ellipticity of planetary orbits (Kepler’s First Law) would suggest an explanation for variations in the Earth’s distance from the Sun, and thus subtly endorse the false answer. However, the supposition of the ellipticity of planetary orbits is not necessary for the false belief that the change of seasons is caused by variation in distance between the Earth and the Sun.

Here is an example from Aristotle:

For this reason it is not the primary locomotion which is the cause of generation and corruption, but that in the inclined circle. For in this latter there is both continuity and being moved with two movements; for, if there is always to be continuous generation and corruption, there has always to be, on the one hand, something being moved so that these changes may not fail, and, on the other hand, two movements, to prevent there being only one of the two results. So the locomotion of the whole is the cause of the continuity, whilst the inclination is the cause of the approach and retreat. For this results in its coming to be further away at one time and nearer at another, and since the distance is unequal the movement will be irregular. So, if it generates by approaching and being near, this same thing destroys by retreating and coming to be further away. (De generatione et corruptione II.10 336a31-b7; tr. Williams)

In other words, the Sun’s annual motion along the ecliptic, which is inclined, is the cause of the Sun’s approaching and retreating from the Earth, thereby causing the seasons, in particular spring and summer, which bring about heat conducive to generation of living beings, and then also autumn and winter, which bring about cold conducive to destruction of living beings. This is very clear from another passage:

The efficient, controlling and first cause is the circle of the Sun’s revolution. For it is evident that as it approaches or recedes the Sun produces dissolution and composition and is thus the cause of generation and destruction. (Meteorologica I.9 346b22-24; tr. Lee)

Now this is puzzling for two reasons. First, Aristotle did not think that the Sun is made of fire or that it produces any heat by itself. Rather, he thought that it is the friction between the uppermost sublunary (fiery) layer and the lowermost superlunary (ethereal) layer that generates heat, but that was a subject of controversy even in the Peripatetic school, so we may put that aside.

Second, Aristotle subscribed to a Eudoxan theory of the heavens, which involves a number of nested concentric spheres with the Earth in the middle. But if the Earth is in the middle, and the Sun is carried by several concentric spheres (3 according to Eudoxus, 5 according to Callipus, 9 according to Aristotle; cf. Metaph. XII.8), how can he account for the supposed variation in the distance between the Sun and the Earth, that is for the Sun’s ‘approach’ and ‘retreat’?

One may try to solve this problem by supposing that by ‘approach’ (prosienai) and ‘retreat’ (apienai) he means merely approach to it highest point at summer solstice and retreat to its lowest point at winter solstice. But that won’t do, since Aristotle in the first passage above explicitly connects ‘approaching’ with ‘being near’ (engus) and ‘generating’ (presumably, through heat), and on the other hand ‘retreating’ with ‘being farther away’ (porrō) and ‘destroying’ (presumably, through cold). How can he have variation in ‘being near’ and ‘being farther away’ if the Sun is carried by a set of concentric spheres? The suggestions that the spheres are not perfectly regular, or that the Earth is not in the centre of these spheres, can be rejected straight away in light of Aristotle’s statements in the De caelo.

I am not aware that this problem has been raised in scholaraly literature (though my search hasn’t been thorough at all), and at the moment I do not have an answer to it. But I would welcome any hints and suggestions.